Turkey’s last prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, has said the state of emergency will be lifted and a new cabinet will be announced on Monday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Yıldırım appeared on the agency’s “Editor’s Desk” as a special guest on Thursday and commented on the post-election agenda.
Yıldırım also said a final government decree would be issued tomorrow that “will include necessary measures to avoid vulnerabilities in the area of counterterrorism once the state of emergency is over.”
Turkey had declared a state of emergency after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that left 249 dead and thousands wounded.
Under the state of emergency the cabinet had enjoyed the authority to issue government decrees, announcing 31 of them, which had led to the dismissal of almost 150,000 civil servants and the closure of hundreds of private enterprises, including schools, hospitals and media outlets.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ally, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, have agreed not to extend the state of emergency, the Hürriyet Daily News reported.
Erdoğan and Bahçeli discussed the issue on June 27 during their first face-to-face meeting after the June 24 elections in which the “People’s Alliance,” formed by Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the MHP, won a parliamentary majority.
Bahçeli and Erdoğan discussed a formula to amend relevant laws for the struggle against terror, such as the anti-terror law and the penal code, so that the lifting of the state of emergency will not cause “weakness” in the fight against “terror groups.”
Yıldırım is the last prime minister of the modern Turkish Republic as a new system of governance, an executive presidency, was adopted in a referendum last year. Yıldırım is expected to be the new speaker of parliament for the next legislative term.
Yesterday a new government decree was issued to transfer executive duties and responsibilities to the presidential post.
According to the decree, the president will select his own Cabinet and chair its meetings and will also be able to form and regulate ministries and remove civil servants, all without parliamentary approval.
President Erdoğan, who was re-elected on June 24, will start to exercise his new powers after taking the oath of office on July 9.